


First Contact

by TheSeaShelly



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: #not finished, Alternate Universe - Reverse Falls (Gravity Falls), F/M, kind of alcohol references
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-06
Updated: 2020-04-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:13:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23518240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSeaShelly/pseuds/TheSeaShelly
Summary: Pacifica can't resist the temptation of going for a short walk in the woods her first night in Gravity Falls.An excerpt of my work-in-progress Reverse Falls story.
Relationships: Dipper Gleeful | Reverse Dipper Pines/Pacifica Southeast | Reverse Pacifica Northwest, Pacifica Northwest & Dipper Pines, Reverse Dipcifica
Comments: 7
Kudos: 35





	First Contact

The two finally got into bed after two hours of shy conversation about relatives. Slowly but surely he was opening up.

  
Gideon was snoring in a matter of minutes, but Pacifica’s brain just wouldn’t turn off. She lay flat on her back and stared at the exposed rafters. Her fingers drummed impatiently on the light blanket.

  
Another look at Gideon’s bed.

  
He probably wouldn’t mind if she got a head start on him. A short walk in the woods would tire her out and sate her curiosity until at least morning.

  
Rolling out of bed without making a sound, she pulled on a pair of shorts and her favorite pair of red converse. She looked over at the journal tucked away half hidden under Gideon’s pillow. She wouldn’t give him a heart attack by trying to take that with her.

  
She grabbed a flashlight from her backpack and off she went through the back door.

  
Summer heat had been well absorbed into the moss and barks of the trees, making the air almost soft around her. It was a comfortable feeling that wrapped her up in the new forest. She looked towards the old country road, squinting to see the cracked asphalt that led in the direction of town. There was a distant glow to show population, but next to the quiet of the trees it didn’t seem inviting. Instead of going up the road she crossed into the clearing with a totem pole. A dull trail of worn dirt lead into the thicket on the other side.

  
To her delight the path lead over a small river, just big enough for fish to been seen in it. Pacifica sighed and sat on the edge of the bridge, letting her feet almost dangle in the water. The tired wood under her hands felt so exhilarating, like she was the only person to have crossed it in the last hundred years. There was nothing that gave away a town being anywhere near here, she reveled in just the light of the moon. Her eyes wandered upstream to a glowing patch that sparkled a warm blue color.

  
She squinted, trying to see what could be making that color this deep in the woods. The source was from the trunk of a tree?

  
Pacifica scrambled up from her seat and crossed the bridge, running over to a glowing mushroom with a top as big as her face. She laughed softly and reached out to stroke one of the spots but hesitated. Usually, nothing this pretty is safe. So, she settled on poking it with a stick. Some luminescent powder puffed out to coat the tip.

  
Pacifica hummed to herself and stood up. Maybe there were more glowing mushrooms on this side of the bridge. Her mother loved this color, lake foam green she called it. If she found one small enough, she could coat it in nail polish and make a pendant to send back home to her!

  
The more her eyes adjusted to the dark of the forest, the more dots of blue she saw. There had to be one just the right size for a necklace.

  
Egged on by the thought of a midnight treasure hunt she took off into the woods, not bothering to look for a path anymore. There was something exhilarating about ducking under bushes and sidestepping trees. It only excited her more as she started seeing some glowing dots moving through the air. She forced her shoes into the damp mud and looked around a tree that was so littered with mushrooms it appeared more blue than brown. A person the size of a butterfly was flapping their way through the air, up into the foliage of the tree she hid behind. A fairy! A real, unanimated fairy! She wanted to squeal but held her hands over her mouth. The sound might scare them.

  
There were many different sized mushrooms in this part of the forest, enough to dimly light the ground in front of her.

  
“S’cuse me, toots.” A rough voice passed by her left side.

  
“Oh, pardon me.” She said reflexively, letting the gnome scamper by her feet.

  
A beat later she nearly choked on her own tongue, trying to climb up the tree to get away from the actual gnome that had pushed by her ankles.

  
“G-g-g-...” she stuttered. The gnome continued his way like he saw humans all the time.  
‘Well,’ She thought to herself. ‘If they can act like they see humans every day, I suppose it’s the least I can do to act the same to them.’

  
She put a wiggly leg in front of her to continue her search, though, if she was being honest with herself, she was just exploring at this point. Before she could make it past the blue tree she could hear more noise behind her, this one sounded heavy. Heavier than her.

  
The heartbeat she’d been trying so hard to lower spiked again as she scrambled up the tree about seven feet into the first cradle of branches. She slapped her hand over her mouth to try and stifle her panting as the footsteps, definitely close to human pattern passed under the tree. She shifted to her side to see what it was, a centaur maybe?

  
A boy in his late teens walked leisurely by, as if he made this trek every night. He was talking in a normal volume, but he appeared to be alone.

  
“…-Mabel. I promised you to her.”

  
“But M-master, what if something happens? The woods this time of night-!” The second voice seemed smaller, higher pitched, but still masculine.

  
“You know perfectly well I can handle myself.” The boy snapped. Pacifica shrank into the tree. “Shoo, or do I need to…?” He rested a hand on a blue gem the size of a walnut attached to a bolo tie.

  
A small turquoise triangle shot out from the pocket on the boy’s button up, straightened his comically crooked hat, and flew off in the direction of town.

  
The boy looked more relaxed now, his hand that hadn’t been at his throat unclenched around the messenger bag slung over his shoulder. He huffed and continued walking, now at a faster clip.

  
As soon as she couldn’t hear his footsteps, Pacifica let herself down quietly. She looked towards the way the boy had been going. He hadn’t seemed very nice to the little triangle. It probably wasn’t safe to follow someone like that. Also, why did he have a pet triangle? Not that it was strange after seeing the gnomes and faries.

  
She looked towards the Mystery Shack, where she knew the bridge was ready to cross, then deeper into the forest.  
She swung her hair behind her and creeped after the boy. After all, she had been going this way first. It was his fault if he got ahead of her at some point. She avoided twigs that could snap, helped along by the glowing mushrooms that accented her way. After a few minutes she heard him leading by twenty feet or so. Barely loud enough to follow. Something was odd about him. His clothes looked like they were well taken care of, but who wore designer jeans and a fancy button up into the woods for a night hike? At least he wasn’t wearing good shoes.

  
There was an upward slope out of the valley after a quarter of a mile. She hung back and watched as he used roots and branches sticking out of the soil to hoist himself up to the top of the first landing.

  
Pacifica waited until he was very over the edge and then some before starting up after him. She peeked over the top. He was touching the jewel again, muttering something into a moss-covered wall.

  
Pacifica shrank down a little bit. This guy was clearly a little insane, maybe violent, and she had just followed him through the woods alone. Not smartest thing she had ever done. Some of the dust from the mushrooms must have gotten into her eyes, she could have sworn that the boy was starting to glow a similar shade.

  
As she was about to slide back down the cliff, the rock in front of the boy lit up with runes that shimmered under the screen of tree roots. They joined together into one arch and with a jostling crack there was a hallway that looked ancient, but Pacifica could have sworn it to be a rock wall a second ago. He absently traced a root with his hand down the new path until he was out of sight.

  
Pacifica didn’t waste any time in booking it onto the cliffside and looking through the curtain of greenery. A dark, heavy door was at the end of the hallway. She had to stand on her tip toes to look through the iron bars protecting the window.  
Before the passage could close up she hurried inside, making sure her shoes didn’t slap against the hard floor. Her eyes adjusting to the lack of moonlight showed there was plenty of overgrowth inside, but torches lit the way down in place of the mushrooms.

  
Before she could continue, she put her hands on her knees and tried to shake off some of the adrenaline drowning her good sense.

  
Pacifica crept down the hallway, looking at the intricate paintings of pyramids, eyes, and other nameless shapes that she was too freaked to figure out right now. She took out her phone and silently snapped a picture for later. Maybe Gideon’s journal would have something written about this place. It had gotten the gnomes right at least.

  
The end of the passage widened into a round pit. The top was open to the sky, showing a brilliant scattering of constellations. She leaned against the side of the arch, taking in the beautiful view. Maybe it was the fact she had just snuck through a secret passage, but it felt different here, the air was colder and smelled of saltwater. A pond sat in the center of the room with an overgrown stone path leading to it. Flowers and greenery she didn’t recognize made the magic garden seem untamable.

  
Through pine trees that looked much larger than the ones in the forest, Pacifica saw the boy reach into his bag, take a cape out, and tie it around his shoulders. In any other environment she would have thought it over the top but here she felt out of place in cutoffs.

  
The boy stood next to the pond, so clear that the stars reflected perfectly in the surface. He took a maroon journal from inside the cape and flipped it open. Her heart lurched when she recognized the color. That was just like Gideon’s! Was this one of the twins that had been terrorizing him?

  
After glancing through some text, he began muttering in a language she had never heard before. The way he said it sounded as if the words fit perfectly into the setting, of course they were meant for a place like this.

  
Pacifica closed her eyes and plopped onto the ground, her mind going somewhere she couldn’t have been more content with it. The soft chant sank into her skin and melded with her hair like a wave of warm water. It invaded her eyes and nose and mouth with calm. She was weightless in this magical forest and the only thing tethering her to this reality was the voice weaving through the trees. These lines weren’t fit for casual conversation at brunch or beside your school locker. This spoken lullaby was only for this secret garden and the two people in it.

  
The incantation ended, and she opened her eyes. The world around her had been awakened by the boy’s voice.  
The evergreen trees grew taller and small particles of light waved through their branches, making it seem like they were moving themselves. The script written around the surrounding walls comforted her, like they were emanating a dull hum. Grass poking between the laid stonework waved and beckoned to the boy crouched on top of them. They invited him to sink into the stone and become part of this miraculous place. Unlike Pacifica, the boy didn’t seem affected by this at all. He stood and walked to the center of the pond, now glowing a beautiful soft teal light from inside.

  
In her relaxed state Pacifica didn’t think it was strange at all that he was walking on water. Why should the water try to pull him down? It didn’t seem logical.

  
The boy seemed happy with the position on the pond and touched the jewel on his neck once more. This time she was sure his entire being lit up with the welcoming blue glow of the pond. A beam of light swirled out of the water and spiraled around him. It flowed through his body, making the cape billow and soar. His hair lifted off of his forehead for a moment and she saw a sprinkle of freckles underneath.

  
A gust of blue light showed her the inside of the cape. Maybe it was a really shiny material? It looked like the galaxy had been poured into the lining. His hands cradled the book open next to his chest, the outline of a blue pine tree shone brighter than anything in the garden from the pages. When it seemed like the tree was going to turn white from energy, it sank into his chest, leaving the night darker than before.

Pacifica was sure of one thing; that she needed to be closer to that pine tree.

  
The boy’s cape regained some gravity and the magic ebbed back into the depths. He strode back onto solid ground, closing the book as he walked. Pacifica sighed and tried to think about why she was here in the first place. Was she supposed to be here? Had he asked her to come see this? Either way she wasn’t standing without any help. She watched silently as he packed up his messenger bag, the trees no longer waving their lights, and feeling kind of dejected in general that the whole thing was over.

  
With one final look around the boy ran his hand through his hair and started towards the archway Pacifica was draped next to. Of course, there was no need to move, she was supposed to be there, right?

  
He made eye contact with her and stopped dead in his tracks. She tried to look focused, not wanting to seem rude, like she hadn’t been paying attention. He looked her up and down before crouching next to her.

  
“How did you get in here?”

  
She thought he had said it to her, but he didn’t seem to be expecting an answer. That was good, she really didn’t want to look anywhere but his eyes. They were glowing the same color as the pond had. He carefully tilted her chin up to study her face.  
“Wow, I really got you good, huh?”

  
Pacifica could barely open her mouth to try putting together a reply.

  
He sighed and stood back up, looking towards the entrance. She was forced to break eye contact. Instead she ogled his amulet, it was almost as vibrant.

  
“Well, I can’t leave you here. Up you go.” He touched his jewel and she felt herself rise off the ground, surrounded by the same color as everything else she couldn’t stop staring at.

  
Out the passageway they went and down the cliffside. Through the forest of mushrooms and over the bridge.

  
“Can you speak yet?” He asked over his shoulder. “Where do you live?”

  
“Mystery?” She mumbled. How was she supposed to know?

  
He raised an eyebrow.

  
“You aren't familiar. Are you visiting?”

  
She hummed to herself and reached out to touch the pendant.

  
“Woah, no you don’t.” He sent her higher up in the air. “Maybe Ford will know what to do with you.” She was trying to swim towards him now.

  
“What is your name?” He asked very clearly, enunciating each syllable.

  
“Pazzzzzzz.” She giggled, turning over midair.

  
“Yeah, that means nothing to me.” He sighed. She grabbed for him again. “Oh, very well.” He clenched the hand that wasn’t touching the gem into a fist then released, sending a concentrated ball of light up to her.

  
Pacifica couldn’t have been more tickled to hold her own sphere of magic. She was silent the way up to the giant mansion on top of the hill, busy staring into her own hands where her personal light was glowing.

  
“S’nice place you got here.” Pacifica muttered, spinning slowly upside down behind the boy. She had found out that the magic from the light could be better absorbed by hugging it close to her chest like a warm cloth on a cold night.

  
The boy glanced behind him then did a doubletake.

  
“Woah!” He hurriedly lowered her back down and retrieved the ball back into his palm. “Don’t put that too close to your center of mass.” He was still talking to himself. He put his palm over her diaphragm and drew out any wisps of it that had sunken into her.

  
“Brother!” A haughty voice called from the top of the staircase. “What’s that you’ve got there?”

  
Pacifica had to blink a few times to get the jarring noise of someone else’s voice out of her head.

  
“Do you recognize her? I was finishing up at the well and she was laying next to the entrance. In this state.”

  
The girl slid down the bannister and ran over to where Pacifica was still being levitated. Her mind was still very fuzzy, but the girl’s voice was a cold slap to the face.

  
“Never seen her before. Ohhh, you did a number on her, Mason. What’s your secret? I can’t even get Gideon to follow me into the forest.”

  
Pacifica grimaced and sleepily turned away from the girl to try and escape.

  
“I didn’t mean to! I had no idea she was there; she must have been following me!” The boy’s voice, even sounding irate, was like a balm over Pacifica’s ears.

  
“Well she’ll have a decline time no matter how much she was exposed to. I’ll ask Ford. We probably won’t be able to get rid of her until this has worn off. I don’t want her scaling the gates like the last few.” The girl turned and ran back up the staircase.

  
“No don’t wake-“ She was already gone.

  
Pacifica sighed and relaxed a little. The boy looked down at her.

  
“Paz, you won’t remember this but maybe next time something will hold you back from following a stranger into the forest. Or just me. I don’t care what you do in your spare time.”

  
“Master?” The little triangle had appeared on his shoulder, wringing his hands. “Is this why you wanted me to leave?”

  
“No!” Mason snapped. “I am allowed privacy without having you trailing after me!”

  
The triangle flinched, and his one eye brimmed with tears.

  
“Of course, sir.”

  
Pacifica snickered as she completed another loop in the air. The triangle didn’t sound as annoying as the girl, and it had a nice glow like Mason did. She didn’t mind him.

  
“You.” A voice snarled from upstairs. The triangle flew back into Mason’s shirt pocket.

  
A man with stately streaks of grey in his hair descended the stairs in a maroon bathrobe.

  
“If you want to go cavorting in the night God knows where, never let your sister wake me up again!” Mason almost took a step back from the menacing tone in his voice.

  
“F-Ford, I didn’t tell her to wake you up. I just need to know- “

  
“Yes, yes, let me see her.” He pushed Mason away from the floating Pacifica who groaned and tried to roll away from another unpleasant voice.

  
Ford looked her over and pried one of her eyes open.

  
“If you’re going to lay on spells this thick, know the consequences.”

  
“But I didn’t…” He started. “Yes sir.”

  
“What is your name?” Ford asked just as plainly as Mason had before.

  
“Pazifia. Go ‘way.” She wiggled trying to float from the foreign presence.

  
Ford grunted and pushed her back towards Mason. “Gleeful has been expecting a visitor from out of town. A girl. This is probably her. Give her a tranquilizer and let her sleep it off. Just make up something in the morning and send her on her way. Whatever you used tonight don’t try it again, her pupils are dilated to the full extent.”

  
Mason caught Pacifica and snapped to a butler on hand. The butler gave a curt nod and went off to the first aid room.

  
He was studying her harder now.

  
“Visiting Gideon? A girlfriend?” He smirked. “Definitely not. Maybe family? Even better.”

  
“Dipperrrr...” Pacifica muttered. Mason flushed and shook his hair over his birthmark, pushing her upstairs into one of the spare bedrooms. He released the magic hold as soon as she was over a bed.

  
Maybe it was the gravity that started her head clearing, but Pacifica was more aware of her surroundings than she had been in the last two hours. Mason checked her pulse as the butler came into the room with two pills and a glass of water.

  
“Here.” He handed her the pills and then the water, which she chugged gratefully. As she drained the glass she looked around at the ornate posts of the bed and heavy looking furniture.

  
“Nice place you got here.” She said quietly, finally able to talk without slurring.

  
Mason almost laughed.

  
“Yeah, I know.”

  
Pacifica glared up at him blearily from the bed. “You’re supposed to say thank you.”

  
“Yeah, I guess I am. Is your name actually Pazifia? If so, I’m sorry.”

  
“Pacifica.” She sighed, putting a hand on her forehead. How had she gotten into this house?

  
“It’s an improvement. How pliable are you right now?”

  
Pacifica shrugged.

He conjured the magic ball again and set it in her hand.

  
“How about now?”

  
She fixed her eyed on the light and turned closer to him in the bed, holding it into her chest. It brought back the pleasant fogginess.

  
“Pacifica, have you seen a red journal with Gideon?”

  
She nodded, trying to poke through the orb.

  
“Describe it for me.”

  
“Dark red, gold six fingered hand on the front. It had a three on it. Really old.”

  
She was too enamored with the blue light to notice Mason’s face slip from the neutral expression he’d been maintaining.  
“Three?” He muttered. He drew the ball into his hand with a whine from Pacifica.

  
The pills were starting to kick in on her end. Mason’s luminous eyes once again caught her attention, giving off the magic aura she needed.

  
“Gimmie your eyes.” She groaned, grabbing up at him.

  
He rose from his seat next to the bed.

  
“That’s a new one. But no.” He stood in the doorway for a moment. “Out of common human decency I’m not going to tell Mabel you’re staying with Gideon.”

  
The light was turned out and the door shut behind him.

  
“Who’s Mabel?” Pacifica managed to mutter.

  
~

Mason hadn’t gone three feet before Will was perched on his shoulder.

  
“I want you to stay with her tonight. No deals. No looking into her dreams. Just made sure she stays asleep.”  
“Yes sir.” Will shook some tears away and flew through the door.

  
Mason sighed and rubbed his eyes. He could feel a relapse of insomnia coming on. Mabel was waiting around the corner, arms crossed over her chest.

  
“That little slut is staying with my Gideon??” She hissed, matching his pace down the hallway.

  
“They’re family. I should have guessed you’d be listening.” Mabel’s stomping was giving him a headache.

  
This turned her mood around completely. She giggled and twirled, clasping her hands.

  
“I finally have an in with Gideon! If we become best friends, I’ll be around Gideon all the time and I can sneak into his room when we have sleepovers!”

  
Mason turned on the light to their room, hoping to escape to his study before Mabel caught her second wind of energy.

  
He threw his cape over the foot of his bed. A stack of timeworn books was filed neatly behind his headboard and locked under glass in case Mabel decided to destroy their room in a “fit of passion” again.

  
“Sister dear,” He started with grit teeth, careful to keep his voice even. “Why would you wake Ford? He’s going to hold me responsible.”

  
Mabel tutted and flopped on her own bed. “Well you didn’t know what was going on. What if she had needed her memory wiped? You pretty much roofied her with magic.”

  
Mason flipped open his journal to the page entitled Tum de Virtute. He scanned the page again, as if he hadn’t already memorized it. It had the chant to seduce the well into giving him the power of the amulet, it mentioned the side effect on humans near the bottom.

  
“Be careful where you practice this incantation, it is designed to seduce the magic from the portal, but also works as a minor love spell to humans. From my own tests humans have shown an intense fondness of any trace of the magic. Time of recovery varies depending on the amount heard and body weight.”

  
Mabel blew a raspberry at the ceiling, twirling a knife in the air.

  
“Boring! Hey, you don’t think that they have some sort of weird Alabama relationship going on, do you??”  
Mason rolled his eyes and closed the book.

  
“She’s a tad out of his league to say the least.”

  
Mabel gasped dramatically and bounced off the bed, pointing a finger at him. The knives she had been playing with turned towards him in response.

  
“You like her!”

  
Mason waved a hand to turn the daggers towards the wall.

  
“I can comment on someone’s appearance without having feelings for them.” His face was heating up more from the panic of knowing what his sister could do with this information than actual embarrassment.

  
“No, you can’t!” She screamed “You love her! You’re gonna get married!” Mabel rocketed towards him and tackled him with a hug. “My little Dipper is growing up!”

  
“We’re the same age.” He snarled, trying to squirm out of her arms.

  
Mabel let him go and skipped to her wall of Gideon pictures. “I have someone to play matchmaker to this summer!”

  
Mason gathered up his journal and strutted out of their bedroom. She probably wouldn’t walk all the way to his study just to bother him.

  
He chucked his journal down onto the desk and sank into his favorite leather chair. Mabel would be frantic for the next hour at least. That gave him plenty of time to look through his notes about the ritual he had done tonight. The journal had minimal knowledge about anything to do with the amulets. The book he needed was a journal of his own that was disguised as a copy of the forty ninth Caper Brothers. Mason wheeled the chair back to his desk and opened the book. It had a copy of the chant and a sketch he had done of the amulet. He frowned and rubbed the indents where he had pushed too hard with his pen. The well was needed to maintain a certain amount of magic stored in the amulet necessary to keep his hold on Will Cipher.

  
He had tried the chant out on a few locals, mainly women. They all seemed a little out of it but still conscious of their actions. This girl’s words had been slurred, she couldn’t even stand without help. Her pupils were dilated at least twice the size they should have been.

  
He looked out the tall window on the other side of the room. He remembered her eyes were light blue with little streaks of lavender. Lavender eyes. That was so rare. He pressed his palms into his own eyes until little white dots popped in front of them.

  
The spell had probably worked too well because she was in the garden with him when she heard it. That was the only variable that was different. That, or the girls in Gravity Falls were desensitized to magic after living here their entire lives. That was less likely. Magic wasn’t a drug. Now onto the more pressing concern.

  
Three journals? Then where was the first? He had found his beside the middle school, he knew the other was around the Mystery Shack because of the hints in the back of the book. But if the last two were found, there wouldn’t be any clues to where the first was hidden.

  
The room all of the sudden seemed too dark, too silent to stay awake. Maybe he was going to get some sleep tonight after all. He laid his head down on his desk at an angle to stare out the window again.

**Author's Note:**

> Constructive criticism is welcome, as well as ideas. And please let me know if there are any spelling mistakes.


End file.
